


Ribs

by parhelions



Category: NCT (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Medical, Doctors & Physicians, Friends to Lovers, Hospitals, M/M, Mutual Pining
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-04
Updated: 2021-03-04
Packaged: 2021-03-16 22:27:38
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,484
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29831832
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/parhelions/pseuds/parhelions
Summary: It was common knowledge in Yonsei's hospital complex that Dr. Lee and Dr. Kim were, according to various sources, either dating, married, or irrevocably in love.
Relationships: Jung Yoonoh | Jaehyun/Suh Youngho | Johnny, Kim Dongyoung | Doyoung/Lee Taeyong, Minor or Background Relationship(s)
Comments: 31
Kudos: 259





	Ribs

"Pretty, isn't it?"

Five o'clock, and the snow was already starting. Doyoung pushed through the glass doors of cardiology as the first flakes floated down, dusting the sidewalks. The week had been one sullen storm after another: chapped lips, runny noses, a skinny slice of light filtering through the blinds.

He dried his hands on a paper towel. "It is."

Mrs. Park chuckled, feet dangling over the edge of the table. "You don't have to agree. It'll only last for another hour or so, then it'll disappear into a muddy mess." She tipped her chin toward the window. "Kind of like youth, you know?" 

He couldn't resist a snort of laughter. "That's dark, ahjumma."

She let him stoop to examine her wound, press on his stethoscope. Her heartbeat was steady. Strong. The pacemaker was snug. Satisfied, he withdrew, shucking the gloves in the trashcan.

"Nothing like a dash of existentialism to end your day," she said, then raised a graying brow. "It _is_ the end of your day, yes?"

"You're my last patient," Doyoung assured her. "But even if you weren't, I wouldn't tell you."

Her laughter lines deepened. "Cheeky boy. They better not be overworking the life from you."

He helped her out to the front desk. As he loaded up the hall computer, the doors parted, and Taeyong strode in. 

"I'll be in the lobby," he told Doyoung, nodding politely at the staff. He'd changed into track pants and a faded sweatshirt, hair mussed from a day squashed in a surgical cap. "Do I need to call ahead and order something?"

"No need," said Doyoung. He jiggled his mouse, absently cursing the speed of the network. "The chicken's been marinating."

"New recipe?"

"The old one."

Taeyong clucked his tongue in approval. "Okay."

The doors slid shut.

"Everything looks healthy," Doyoung told the waiting nurse. "How is three months from—"

But Mrs. Park wasn't listening. Her face was scrunched up in thought, staring after their visitor's wake.

He was about to ask again, expecting the _he looks like an idol_ exclamation, when she turned her shrewd gaze on him. Specifically, his collar, where the ring glinted on its chain. He had half a second to brace himself before she said, beaming, "Dr. Kim, I suppose congratulations are in order."

Doyoung could have choked on his spit. It wasn't the first time they'd been mistaken as a couple (Taeyong's aunt had the honor of being the first, one summer break in Busan), but it was no less mortifying. Mortifying, embarrassing, nothing more. "That - that's not necessary. It's a friendship ring—"

"Nonsense," she said. "I've raised five children and have a dozen grandchildren running amok. God knows there's little I haven't seen." She patted his arm. "You be happy, now." 

The back of his neck was ablaze. The nurse looked like she was about to explode, holding in her laughter. He cursed his luck; he usually tucked the ring inside his shirt, but it was late and he was tired and he'd wanted to see it. Sentimentality was a slow-acting toxin. "Really, Mrs. Park."

She winked conspiratorially. "If you insist."

*

"He cheated on me," Taeyong said at a red light.

Doyoung's hands stilled on the steering wheel. "That _asshole_."

For once, Taeyong didn't disagree. "He called this afternoon. Said he's never seeing her again, that we could start over." He swallowed. "I told him no."

Without thinking, Doyoung reached out and curled his fingers around Taeyong's cold ones. If Im Hyunsoo—affable, polished Im Hyunsoo from Sungkyunkwan Law—didn't want to hold Taeyong's hand anymore, then he would. "I'm sorry."

"Don't be. I - I wasn't feeling it for a while, to be honest. We would've broken up eventually."

"He could've waited until after you did that," Doyoung bit out. He turned onto a side street, down the mountain. The long way home. "Like anyone with more than two grams of decency. Glad to know he doesn't."

Taeyong laughed quietly, and Doyoung's heart ached. He scrabbled for anger, but Taeyong didn't need his anger right now, nor slanderous choice words at his ex-boyfriend. He grieved without hatred, in peace.

Doyoung drove through brick neighborhoods and one-way lanes, skirting the river. Listening as Taeyong recounted canceled dates and messy pans and tired arguments over work schedules. It reminded him of the subway rides they took once upon a time, the two of them reeling after red-eye projects, bars in Hongdae, practicals stinking of formaldehyde. When they were lost in the tangle of second-guessing and rock-bottom self-worth that was medical school.

"Honestly, we were just fucking and going to straight to sleep for the past month or so," Taeyong said, pillowing his head against the window. "Can you believe we used to call it _making love?_ "

"Unfortunately. I gagged when you told me that."

"Glad I could provide. He also said—" He stopped.

"What?"

Taeyong grimaced. "Nothing. I...later."

Doyoung glanced over. Taeyong released a breath, profile limned by the oil slick spill of neon signs, snow turned to rain.

_Pretty, isn't it?_

Pushing the thought away, Doyoung rounded another turn. He'd _liked_ Hyunsoo. Despite spawning the grubby lawyer jokes, he'd thought the man was kind, reminding Taeyong to eat, taking him out to whimsical places. Johnny dubbed them a pair of kittens, the way they cuddled during movies.

Apparently not.

"Do you want me to drop you at home?" Doyoung asked. He didn't want Taeyong to go, but knew he tended to hover over his friends, sick or sad. It was hard to read him tonight.

Taeyong shook his head. "He's probably getting his stuff right now. Ten months of accumulated crap. Besides," he turned his hand over, squeezing Doyoung's palm in a way that did swooping things to his gut, "I kind of want to bury my face in dakdoritang right now."

Doyoung dredged up a smile. "I can do that."

*

Friday was a lab day, which meant trekking across campus to the chrome and cinderblock monstrosity that was Yonsei's biotech building. Doyoung was glad; a call for a bypass had broken at four that morning and left him stumbling to the daybed when it was over. There was nothing like the monotonous rows of a spreadsheet in feeling human again.

At Mrs. Park's assumption, Jaehyun laughed for ten minutes straight.

"She obviously doesn't know that you two are at each other's throats half the time," he said, closing a powerpoint speckled with clip art. How his students took him seriously was beyond him. "Or does she? The bickering married couple is a trope, after all."

"It's called friendship," Doyoung deadpanned.

"Most people don't hold their friends' gifts close to their hearts, hyung. Literally."

"No, they just sleep together when they're lonely or drunk and pretend they're dudebros otherwise," Doyoung said, smiling thinly over Jaehyun's splutters.

They trundled into the laboratory across the hall. Although he tried to conceal it, Jaehyun walked with a trace of a limp. Doyoung pinched his nose and kept his mouth shut.

Inside, Donghyuck sat cross-legged on a stool, wrapped in a fleece blanket. "Good morning. The latest samples look like they're behaving."

Doyoung peered into the shaded incubator. "That's good."

"Isn't it? It's all thanks to this one grad student who babysat them for three hours yesterday, on his own time, whoever he may be."

"May praises rain down on him," Doyoung said flatly.

Donghyuck preened, right on cue, and went back to clacking out his report, teetering on his seat. He was going to fall one of these days, and Doyoung wouldn't even be sorry. Much.

The morning passed in a chain of calculations and the glare of the microscope, people flitting in and out, the radio chattering in the background. When Jaehyun stepped out to buy coffee, Doyoung followed.

"Heard Taeyong-hyung and his boyfriend broke up," Jaehyun said, squinting in the sunlight. In his camel hair coat and oxfords, he looked one turn away from the realm of fuzzy sweater vests. 

Doyoung kicked at a stray pebble. "They did."

"Do I need to help plan a murder?"

"You only need to supply a shovel, after."

Jaehyun hummed his agreement, then sobered. "How is he?"

Two nights ago—Taeyong curled numbly on his couch, dry-eyed, flicking through a manhwa on his phone. The scent of chicken, potatoes, and perilla leaves. A fading hickey on the underside of his jaw. A wave of fury Doyoung tamped down as he'd soaped their dishes. "You could ask him yourself, you know."

"I did," Jaehyun said. "He behaved normally - as in, _too_ normally, then somehow got me to spill my problems while I got nothing on his."

Doyoung snorted. "Am I allowed to get in on these problems?"

"No, you aren't." They both looked to ivy-clad Seongam Hall in the distance. The tips of Jaehyun's ears glowed pink. "And no guessing, either."

Doyoung huffed, but paid for the iced coffees at the café in a token of sympathy.

*

February dawned with a clear skies, no clouds. At noon Doyoung crossed the street, climbed two sets of stairs, and flopped onto Taeyong's couch, jostling the throw pillows on top.

Taeyong arrived, slinging off his coat. "Off being lazy again, I see."

"It's lunchtime." Doyoung sat up, adjusting his slacks, and wondered if he'd imagined the hesitation in Taeyong's step, coming in. _Don't overthink._ "If your royal highness could spare half an hour?"

Taeyong's gaze flitted to the digital clock beside the vase—empty, Doyoung realized, where it had once brimmed with fresh flowers. "Twenty minutes."

In the breakroom, a staid spot devoid of cardstock cutouts and glitter-glue projects, they heated two containers of stir-fry while debating the selection of snacks on the counters. 

"Is it good?" Taeyong asked, lifting up a mouthful.

"I don't know, I can't taste anything."

Taeyong tapped his foot. "You're the one who seasoned it, if I recall."

"Before you dumped, like, five cabbages in and messed me up."

"Excuses," Taeyong sang under his breath. He took a gulp of juice and leaned back in his desk chair, sending the tottering stack of envelopes a forlorn look. "We're getting a new chief, apparently. Everyone's supposed to help evaluate the candidates."

"Gee, a pencil-pusher who donated a billion won to the hospital, or another pencil-pusher who donated a couple billion won?"

"So cynical."

"Realistic."

Taeyong rolled his eyes.

They were packing the tupperware when Taeyong's phone chimed: an emergency was en route, abdominal pain, suspected appendicitis. He squeezed Doyoung's arm as he ran out, whispering _happy birthday,_ low voice calmly assessing the situation through the phone.

He was mesmerizing, the handful of times they'd worked together. One minute with a patient and Taeyong could gauge their pain level, what they couldn't articulate aloud. He juggled distraught parents and bawling children while memorizing their names, their dogs' names, their plush dolphins'. In the OR, he guided his team through the hours under a steady confidence.

Alone, Doyoung flicked off the lights and glanced at the vase, a daub of orange against the white walls. He made a mental note to look at the tulips the next time he was at the market.

*

"His oxygen saturation dropped to ninety overnight." Renjun flipped the page. "He's responding better to the captopril, though."

They stepped aside to let a gurney pass, and Doyoung accepted the clipboard. "Better how?"

"He's passing urine, and it's clear. And his wife said his mental state's not as foggy, but that could be from the uptick in his CBC after he was admitted."

"Might be something, might be not." Doyoung returned the chart as they entered his chilly office. "Do you have time for an echo today, or should I get Yeeun?"

"I have time," Renjun said, opening his pocket planner. "Eleven?"

"Sounds good."

Renjun bowed, stowing his pen in his coat pocket. He laid a palm on the door. "Dr. Kim?"

 _Decisive_ and _efficient_ was what came to mind when Doyoung considered his newest resident, along with _concerning sense of humor_ and _pumps ramyeon broth for blood_. This shyness was new. "What is it?"

"Next week - could I request off on Saturday?"

"Probably," said Doyoung, opening the shift schedule on his desktop. Next Saturday left them on February the 14th. _Ah._ "You're on-call for the new year, so it's fine. I can split a few hours with Dr. Kang."

"Thank you." Renjun adjusted his glasses, shifted to one foot. "Will you be alright? With your plans, I mean."

"I can get there late. No one will notice," Doyoung said. Jaehyun's thirty-second birthday was supposed to be a muted affair, takeout dinner and video games. Unless Yuta went too heavy-handed with the rum. Again. "I'll buy a bottle of something on my way there and all will be forgotten."

When he looked back, Renjun had his head cocked in confusion, but didn't press. "Thank Dr. Lee for me, then. See you." He inclined his head and left, leaving Doyoung bewildered. 

The pieces clicked together.

He allowed himself sigh ( _what kind of rumor mill were these kids running?_ ) and a groan (a pervading sense of deja vu), before aggressively focusing on the journal article in front of him for the rest of the hour. 

*

At eighteen, Doyoung's problems were small.

SNU was a dream, lofty and bustling in a tide of faces. Doyoung was never shy. He made friends in every class, dipped into choir and beekeeping and whatever flyer was tacked onto the bulletin board that week, and was soon called to plan social events for their premed cohort. He found a part-time job at the library, where Johnny Seo taught him English swear words and helped edit his papers in exchange for the occasional home-cooked meal. 

One crowded night in the dining commons, Taeyong asked if the seat opposite was taken.

Doyoung didn't remember the words. Only remembered thinking, _he's shyer than I imagined_ , for someone who was a minor myth on campus—dance troupe, biochem society, flawless grades—and that he was cute when he laughed, stunning all the other times. They were both in Philosophy 103. They exchanged numbers.

The years slipped by.

Now, at the age to settle down, dodge the various _what happened to that nice boy you were seeing, dear?_ , Doyoung was behind, by some standards. A scroll through Instagram meant crawling through engagements and weddings and _baek-il_ s. His brother had been dating the same woman for so long even the tabloids got bored. 

But, crawling into the shower after a long shift, wheeling a patient back to a waiting family—he felt whole. Tired, yet content. Eager to work again after a good night's rest. He thought that not many people felt that.

And then there was Taeyong. They'd fought. They'd forgiven each other. They'd taken trips across the country. They'd seen each other cry after losing their a patient, after the happy news of an organ donation, wiping away the tears and snot. The long hours, the interrupted meals, the people in pain—he was glad they traversed it together. Taeyong was his best friend, through and through, and the fortune struck Doyoung dumb, sometimes.

*

Not to be outdone, Johnny laughed for fifteen minutes straight.

They were milling around Dongdaemun, picking out presents for Jaehyun. He rifled through a dusty display of earrings as Johnny bemoaned having to teach British literature next semester ("if I have to explain that _Wuthering Heights_ is not a romance _one more time_ —"). Between swapping notes about Mark tripping in the snow and Ten burning a loaf of chestnut bread, Doyoung let Renjun's aside slip.

"Dude, Jaehyun told me about your patient, too." Wobby with mirth, Johnny peered at a pair of citrine studs. "It's the ring, I swear."

Doyoung, by force of habit, peered down at his hand. An ache bubbled to his throat; all this gleaming metal reminded him of the box burning a rose-gold hole at the bottom of his sock drawer. "I've had it for three years. And it's not even on the right finger."

Johnny shrugged. "Gossip flies, especially in presence of expensive jewelry." He turned to the next kiosk, wearing a dopey smile. "Do you think he'll would like that bracelet?"

Doyoung considered the simple chain, adorned with a couple of charms. It _was_ something Jaehyun would wear; Johnny had been paying attention. "What, so his students can gossip on his expensive jewelry?"

"It's sixteen-thousand, Kim. Everyone's insisting on cheap gifts these days." He glanced back at Doyoung. "How's the neck massager working, by the way?"

"Like my skull's getting sawed off my body, thanks."

Johnny barked out a laugh. "Next year, I'll give you another one, so you can have twice the severing power."

They stopped at a noodle stall for lunch, taking their bowls out into the frosty day. Doyoung sat on the bench and watched the shoppers stream past.

"I have a better idea on what Jaehyun would want," he said.

Johnny kept his gaze trained the street. "Or it could be the complete opposite."

Doyoung remembered Jaehyun dreamy-eyed, freshman year, doubled over laughing at something Johnny had said or done, later on, meshed into their circle of friends. His face, incandescent when he picked out the older in the crowd outside his dissertation defense. "You never know until you try."

Johnny picked at his crust. "There are some things I'd rather not know. At least, not yet." He lifted a shoulder. "Besides, I like what we have now."

Which was complete bullshit, in Doyoung's opinion, but he saw little point in pushing. The optimistic part of him believed they would dodge the iceberg when they got closer; the less-optimistic part dreaded watching these idiots sink in the water.

*

After much hesitation and cross-examination, Taeyong let his lease lapse and moved back in. It was their medical school years again, except with a larger space, money in the bank, and a microwave newer than the nineties. Doyoung woke up one morning and, seeing the shrimp tank gurgling in the living room, was glutted with an inexplicable relief. 

It was familiar, Taeyong humming as he sliced vegetables for dinner. His slippered steps in the hall. The two of them shopping for groceries, texting when there were leftovers in the fridge. 

Taeyong crawling into his bed in the wee hours of the morning, digging his icy heels into his calves.

"Find some _socks_ , goddammit," Doyoung complained. In the grand list of bewildering but ultimately unsurprising things, Jaehyun's birthday party, which doubled for the whole of February because everyone's adult-sized schedules were packed tight, had heralded a mountain of jello shots. Taeil had brought a decanter of banana makgeolli that Taeyong adored, and the two were listing on their feet by midnight.

"Happy birthday," Taeyong whispered, mint on his breath. His pajama top gaped open, revealing a shadow of collarbone.

"You already said that. Two weeks ago." 

Taeyong pouted. "What's wrong with saying it again?"

"I don't know, what's wrong with your own room?"

"Too many boxes," Taeyong mumbled, tracing patterns on the back of Doyoung's hand. Goosebumps prickled up his arm. Drunk Taeyong was affectionate, alluring, and dangerous. "Also, you're warm."

Doyoung, drunk himself, didn't know what to say to that, so opened his arms and let Taeyong snuggle in, filling his senses with his slight weight, the scent of his soap.

He couldn't remember the last time they'd been this close. Probably a year ago, before Taeyong had spilled beer on Im Hyunsoo and his penny loafers at a dance club and fulfilled a meet-cute for the ages. When Doyoung bribed Yuta for Taeyong's ring size so he could buy the match to his own silver band in time for July. It was a whimsical decision—not a joke, but something that felt right. A pair of rings they could wear together. 

Except Taeyong hadn't intended it in that way. He _hadn't_ expected a pair; he'd given Doyoung his freely. In June he'd blushed and fidgeted, blurting, _I like someone_ , and Doyoung crammed his miasma of feelings back to its dim little cave where it couldn't take root. Giving a ring to someone dating someone else wasn't right, even if that someone was Taeyong. 

The ring was stowed away. He didn't return it. Sometimes, coming home from a date (all smiles, politeness), after calling his brother and hearing his fiancee's cheerful voice in the background, he took it out, holding it to the open air. Never looking too deeply.

"Doyoung?"

He opened an eye. "What."

"I missed you."

A pain in his belly. Trust Taeyong to split open the unsaid without trying. "We see each other almost every day."

"You know what I mean. The military was too long." His breath caught in hiccup. "And that relationship was too long."

The bed creaked as Doyoung rearranged their limbs, pausing half a second before thinking _fuck it_ and tangling their legs together. "You'll do it again. With someone less of an asshole. It's not like you'll move away and we never speak again."

"Seoul is big."

"We have phones, hyung."

"It's not the same." His voice was fading, limbs going slack beside Doyoung. "Maybe _you'll_ meet somebody."

Fondly, Doyoung snaked his arm around to encircle his ribs. It was past two. Neither of them had work tomorrow. He was too tired to think. "Get some rest."

*

"Is that your husband?"

Doyoung took a regal sip of water, primly set the cup down, and finally looked to where the boy stared. It was the shot of him and Taeyong a decade ago, surrounded by the golden beach at Busan. He wasn't even surprised anymore. 

"He looks happy."

"Does he?"

"I see boys getting married to girls everywhere, but Grandpa says boys can marry boys and girls can marry girls, too."

"That's right." Doyoung paused. "The second part. That's not my husband."

"Do you have one?"

Doyoung, in a long-suffering patience, nursed another sip of water. "No, I don't."

The boy digested this. "That's cool. I wouldn't want you to get cooties, doctor."

While he mashed buttons on a dented Switch, Doyoung shuffled through a binder of old data, hiding a grin. In the loose-leaf he unearthed a photocopied meta-analysis in black and white, before the days of the paywall, and a post-it note on a buffer solution. Jaehyun would be pleased. 

Soon a nurse collected the boy, cooing that his grandfather's surgery was finished. Yeeun and Renjun—who Doyoung had corrected, laughing gamely—clattered in for the afternoon rounds. Doyoung stood, stretching his arms, and chanced a glance back at the corkboard. 

Johnny and Taeyong, at graduation. Doyoung and Jaehyun and Jungwoo, seated before a placid fountain in Sokcho. Taeyong's bleached blond hair, now a muted brown. His fingers splayed over Doyoung's shoulder. Their collars were whipped by the wind. 

His smile was the same.

For a moment, he imagined saying _yes, that's my husband_. No mortification. No embarrassment. Only a brush of a warm possibility before the wash of guilt, thinking like that.

*

"And then I tried eating this soup, just cabbage, really, but it didn't sit right either. It was still coming out bloody. The pain kicked up a notch, so I came here and they probed my - pardon my language - _hole_ , but nothing came up..."

A dark mass of a thrombus shadowed the screen. An hour of a GI specialist hovering by his elbow, quizzing Renjun in the wings, and Doyoung towed the man upstairs. Another angioplasty, a stress test, then a meeting with Seulgi for a valve replacement. As he left she shoved a shrinkwrapped bundle of biscotti in his hands; her wife had went overboard with the stress-baking.

The sun was sinking by the time he's walking into the children's hospital, chatting with a nurse in the elevator about her daughter's piano lessons. Outside the ICU doors, Yerim waved, gym bag slung over one shoulder, and he glimpsed Sungchan ducking into a room in the corridor. 

Taeyong's nameplate was crooked. Through the window he was intent on his notes, tapping a pen to his chin.

"You're here late."

Taeyong blinked twice, as if trying to shake off a light. "So are you."

"Had some minor emergencies today." He set the biscotti on his desk, trying not to read into the rigidity of Taeyong's spine, his stare. Did he startle him? "You reading more case studies?"

"Yeah." Taeyong spun in his chair. "Her abdominal cavity might be too small for laparoscopy. I'd hate to have to make another large incision, though."

"Sounds tough." Doyoung peered down at the chart. "She's eight?"

"About to be. Her father's some high-ranking executive across town, but he's here every night." He plucked a biscotti out of the packet and bit in, eyes wide. "This is phenomenal."

"Seulgi-noona's wife baked them."

"Ah. The music producer?"

Doyoung nodded. He stepped back against a bookshelf, gazing at the dimming cityscape, the coils of traffic, sneaking glances. Taeyong was lovely, as he always was—powder blue scrubs, white coat that had been washed too many times. Yonsei's navy lanyard looped around his neck.

He was an idiot, only noticing these things now. 

"She's so talented," Taeyong gushed. There was a crumb at the corner of his lips. "There's so many things she can do. Both of them."

Doyoung scoffed. "People say the same thing about you, you know."

"As if."

"Oh? Do you want a list?"

Taeyong dusted his hands, cheeks rosy. "Your confidence in me is blinding. Are you sure you aren't lying through your teeth?" 

"Not blinding. Well-founded." With a small measure of pride, he saw the tulips sitting, still crisp, in the vase. "Have some confidence, Yong-ah." 

"Says the man who _sings_ for his patients," Taeyong groused. He lifted the pen, preparing to burrow back into his work. The hush after the shift change had descended; the conversations in the halls receded. Doyoung motioned to his mouth, and he brushed the crumb away. "Dinner at seven?"

"Dinner at seven."

*

Wednesday night found Jaehyun on their welcome mat, a six-pack of cold OB Lager in hand. 

"Thought you were too busy getting dick tonight," Doyoung drawled, holding the door open. The fragrant spring air washed in. "I was prepared to cancel the bucket order."

Jaehyun swatted his arm, pretending to be scandalized. Despite the balmy turn of season, he wore a turtleneck. _Horndogs._ "It's not like it's every day." He grinned cheekily. "Plus, I wouldn't cancel when you're buying."

Taeyong, who was arranging the plates on the coffee table, cackled in delight.

They settled on the couch. Taeyong cracked open three bottles and set them on the placemats. A rerun of _Master's Sun_ was playing, which, to Doyoung's horror, Jaehyun had never seen. 

"I think I was too busy trying not to fail biology in high school," he said, plucking out a drumstick. "My mom made me drop basketball and signed me up for tutoring four nights a week."

"And now you teach it to hundreds of students each semester," Taeyong marveled.

"Hundreds of eager premeds," Doyoung tacked on. "Fresh meat."

With Jaehyun sandwiched between them, Taeyong could only scowl. 

They ate in companionable silence, watching celebrities muck around on a strawberry farm. At one point their lab group chat pinged, and Doyoung idly reached for his phone.

Jaehyun took a swig from his bottle. "Anything important?"

"Mina suggests investigating caviar's effects on the myocardium. The test subjects being ourselves."

Jaehyun's eyes were crescents. "I'm sure we'll find a wealthy enough donor for that project."

Doyoung rolled his eyes. "And then there's the usual whining for us to buy them to meat. Someone spammed pictures of pork belly." 

"We should. At the end of the semester." Jaehyun nudged both of them. "With your residents, too."

"If Chenle can be coaxed out of his recent PUBG obsession, maybe," Taeyong said. "Donghyuck's wrapping up his thesis soon, right?"

"Yeah," said Doyoung, typing back _in your dreams_ and eliciting a barrage of crying emojis _._ "The latest rumor says KU poached him, the traitor."

"But we wrote such glowing recommendation letters," Jaehyun mock-lamented. "We're complicit in sending them off to the world, aren't we?"

"If they want to go, they should go," Doyoung said dryly.

Taeyong gave a snort, nose crinkled in amusement. "Have you realized how much like dads we sound?"

They laughed, fishing out more pieces of chicken, snapping a pic to send to Johnny, who was enjoying a seminar on hyangga poems. On screen, a preview played of Gongmyung gutting a fish, and Doyoung barely had time to cringe before Jaehyun and Taeyong were cracking the _who is that guy?_ jokes. 

"We're getting old," Jaehyun sighed.

Doyoung hummed, wiping his fingers on a napkin. "The opposite, really. Sometimes I think we're too young." Jaehyun made a questioning noise, and he elaborated, "Spending more than a decade of my life in school - it seems like life hasn't started yet."

"True." Jaehyun stared down at his bottle. "Still feels like I blinked and missed it."

Taeyong tilted his head, reaching for Jaehyun's sleeve. The alcohol made him languid. "Missed what?"

"I don't know - youth?" Jaehyun chewed on his lip. "The window for doing stupid things. Being free. What if I'd picked a different field?"

"There's no time limit," Taeyong said, kindly. "Plus, Doyoung here is a whole year older and does stupid things on a daily basis—"

"Shut—" Doyoung glared; Taeyong darted his ankle out of reach. "Seriously, though. As long as you're not dead, you have time. You'll always have time." 

A beat of contemplative silence. He was speaking to Jaehyun as much as to a part of himself. The shrimp tank thrummed. The television jingled through a commercial on vitamins. _Look at us, having a conversation off the deep end._

Jaehyun dimpled as he stood, gathering their dishes. "Ahh, I have such wise friends."

True to form, they cleared the table, washed their hands, and loaded in the disc for _Howl's Moving Castle_ , the lights turned off. Predictably, Taeyong fell asleep ten minutes in.

"You okay?" Jaehyun whispered to Doyoung. He nodded at Taeyong, who looked so small and vulnerable curled in one of his oversized hoodies that Doyoung, a lecture on indigestion ready, hesitated in shaking him awake. 

"Why wouldn't I be?" Doyoung shot back, but the melting quality to Jaehyun's mouth left the words without heat. _He knows._ Or he had an inkling, because Doyoung had only an inkling. Everything was comfortable and familiar until he thought about things he shouldn't.

He had loved Taeyong for so long that it was hard to tell what kind. What new kinds.

Jaehyun patted his knee, pulling him from his reverie. His bracelet dangled from his wrist, reflecting blue light. "Let's be brave, hyung."

*

When Doyoung was a resident, Jang Sangwoo, a phlebotomist, trekked two blocks every day to drink lattes with Yoon Jinhee, his girlfriend, a nurse in oncology, during their morning break. 

Seven years later, Sangwoo and Jinhee, now husband and wife, still appeared in the courtyard at twelve o'clock sharp, doting each other for fifteen minutes amongst the hedgerows.

"I'm envious. Heart eyes for days," someone said two tables over.

"The cutest couple in the hospital, don't you think?"

"It's either them or Dr. Lee and—"

A chorus of shushing. Eyes prickled the back of his neck. 

"According to the internist, she's been on the pill for years," Youngjae was saying, spearing a tomato slice. "The ultrasound they did returned inconclusive."

"But it showed up on the MRI?" Doyoung asked. 

"Yeah. She's never broken a bone, doesn't smoke. No pain in the left arm. Only hemoglobin is elevated." 

"Huh."

Youngjae grinned. "Interesting enough?" 

"Jaehyun's just running controls this afternoon," Doyoung said. "I could swing by your office before I leave."

"Thanks, Doyoung." Youngjae set his fork down, satisfied, and glanced at his watch. It was a shiny Casio replacement he'd gotten at the beginning of their fellowship. "By the way, are you free this weekend? My friend's in town. Thought you might be up for a double date."

Doyoung studied the swirls in his coffee, feeling off-kilter all of a sudden. "The girl you went to high school with." 

"We could go to that sushi place Seulgi-noona's been raving about, next to the arcade." A playful cant of his head. "It'll be fun. Class president meeting class president."

Truthfully, Doyoung had no plans, except for the typical round of meal-prep and bingeing on the latest dramas. He hadn't went on a date in forever. He trusted Youngjae's taste in friends.

Except.

A light, fizzy ache sprung in his chest. Maybe it was the mist sprinkling down, or the ballad playing over the speakers, or the revelation had been building for a long time, to this small moment in the brightly-lit cafeteria surrounded by colleagues and strangers. "Sorry, Youngjae."

The radiologist shook his head good-naturedly, looking unsurprised. "No worries. Another time, then."

They got up to leave. Outside, Jinhee blew Sangwoo a kiss goodbye, pirouetting under the umbrella.

*

In the end, it was an ordinary Tuesday.

The ER called in the evening, just as he took his jacket from its hook. Doyoung ran downstairs, where Renjun was already sorting through the ECG printouts. A room was cleared, the x-ray laid ready, and a pericardial knock was discovered upon arrival.

At ten-thirty, the streetlights slanting over the trees, Doyoung toed off his shoes at their front door. 

From the kitchen, Taeyong called out a hello. He lounged at the counter, leafing through a magazine. A mug of tea steamed at his elbow. It had been his off-day; his hair was damp from a shower. He looked rested. Beautiful.

Chest tight, Doyoung went to the refrigerator, slotting in his leftovers between the wine bottles. "Did you steal another waiting room issue?"

"It's from 2005." Taeyong held up the cover, a faded rendering of the Golden Gate Bridge. "They were going to recycle it." He looked up at Doyoung, lips quirked. "We should go to Budapest. I want to eat soup."

"What's wrong with the soup we have here?" Doyoung asked, just to be difficult.

"Not just any soup. This." Taeyong pointed to a spread of what appeared to be a thick potato puree, accompanied with a hunk of bread. "And then there's the mineral hot springs. It says there's over a hundred of them there."

Doyoung crossed his arms. Privately, even if Taeyong had said they were going to the wilds of Australia to eat cake with the parrots, he would follow. "So we'll fly to Hungary and sample soup and take baths."

Taeyong beamed. "Yes. Start saving your vacation days, Doie. Or I'm traveling without you."

Doyoung padded around the counter, pretending to study the magazine. Taeyong's neck was studded with moles. "Wouldn't you get lost?" he teased.

" _Hey._ Google Maps is a thing."

"Might I remind of you of Osaka last—"

"That was a mistake, how was I supposed to know the bridge wasn't actually a bridge—" 

Taeyong turned, and seemed aware of their proximity, eyes going wide. Doyoung expected him to skitter back, grumble about personal space, but he paused. He darted a glance down, so quick that Doyoung thought he'd missed it. And then he was leaning up, Doyoung freezing, and their lips were pressed together in a harsh, abrupt moment. 

"You—"

"I'm sorry," Taeyong rushed out. He grabbed Doyoung's wrist from where his hand rested on the back of his chair, eyes heavy with emotion—terror, exultation, something wild Doyoung couldn't place—then let go. The skin burned.

"It's okay," Doyoung managed, stunned.

"No, no - it's not, I shouldn't have done that." His adam's apple bobbed as he swallowed, rising to his feet. "I - I have something to tell you." 

Doyoung held his breath, questions crowding his throat. "Okay."

"You...remember Hyunsoo?" 

"Of course." A familiar anger darted through the fog, riddled with jealousy. "Has he done something?"

Taeyong gave an emphatic twist of his head. "No. He just said something before we broke up, and - it got me thinking."

Doyoung held himself up, waiting for him to continue.

"He said, 'you've been in love with that Kim Doyoung since forever,' and he - sounded so resigned, as if it was the truth all along." Taeyong wrung his hands in front of him, shutting his eyes. "I was so shocked I couldn't say anything. He wouldn't hear my denials. Of course we're close, I told him, we're best friends and..." He trailed off. 

"We are," Doyoung murmured, gentle. Not daring to hope.

"But then I thought about some more. And more. I couldn't stop thinking about it." Taeyong was on the verge of babbling, and cut himself off. A shallow breath, in then out. "And, Doyoung, I think I am. In love with you." He opened his eyes. "I know I am."

The kitchen tiles were too cold for Doyoung to be dreaming.

A vacant part of him thought about putting on socks, which made him think of his sock drawer. And then his thoughts were crashing ahead of him, echoing _I know I know_ on repeat, the truth not quite sinking in.

He said, "Hold on."

Taeyong looked so stricken that he caught himself, leaning in again to thumb a stray tear on his cheek, hoping it was reassuring. The older hiccuped.

The box was the same as he'd left it. It was a neat square of vermillion, a heaviness in his palm. He stumbled back into the kitchen and placed it on the counter. 

His voice didn't sound like his own as he said, "Open it. It's yours."

Taeyong did. 

The ring, in all its glory, shimmered in its case.

"When?" Taeyong breathed.

Doyoung looked to the window, feeling, all at once, the weight of the night on him. "Last year. Before you said you liked Hyunsoo. I...wanted it to be our thing. After you gave me mine."

Taeyong gaped at him. Slowly, he picked up the ring and held it in his hand. Slipped it onto his finger.

At the sight, Doyoung's insides flooded with warmth.

"You love me." Taeyong's eyes were wide, glassen in the burgeoning realization.

"Of course I do." Doyoung choked out a laugh. "That was never a question. It's just - I want you, too. Romantically. Sexually."

Taeyong cupped his face in his hands. They were close enough that Taeyong had to tilt his chin up, Doyoung looking down. There was nowhere to turn. Only Taeyong, the same boy that had slid into the hard wooden seat in front of him more than a decade ago, and a different one, older, wiser, surer in navigating the world.

He kissed him hard.

Their teeth clacked; Doyoung lifted trembling arms to wrap around his waist, tugging him in. It had been a while. But Taeyong, licking into his mouth, balanced in his hands, making tiny, pleased sighs between their kisses, sent the instincts rushing back. 

He backed Taeyong into the counter, thumbing his hipbone. Taeyong went willingly, shivering under Doyoung's touch as he felt under the hem of his shorts, grazing his thigh, scoping out the dizzying expanse of smooth skin. His hands slid down to Doyoung's nape, holding fast. 

"Should we move?" he asked, lips brushing the line of Taeyong's jaw. "If - you want to go that far, I mean." 

Taeyong found his hand. "Mine or yours?"

They tripped into Taeyong's room, where Taeyong wasted no time pushing Doyoung onto the tidy bedspread, clambering onto his lap.

"Too much?" Taeyong asked against Doyoung's neck, teeth scraping a spot that had sent a shudder down his body.

"No. You're just so—"

"So what?" There was a smile in his voice.

"Argh."

"Eloquent."

Doyoung shifted his hips in retaliation, dragging out a gasp. His fingers dug into Taeyong's shoulder blades, his waist, not getting nearly enough. He wanted to make Taeyong fall apart in his hands. He wanted to fall apart in his hands.

In the next moment Taeyong unbuttoned his shirt, fingers quivering, sliding it from his shoulders. hands running over Doyoung's chest. The rest of their clothes came off in a blur. The ring on its chain was left on. At a bite to his neck, Taeyong made a keening noise right next to his ear, and then Doyoung was giving his bare ass an exploratory squeeze.

"Stop teasing," Taeyong whined. "I know you can find my prostate in twenty seconds flat."

Doyoung groaned. Having Taeyong squirming his lap was scrambling his brain. Every hazy wet dream was incomparable to reality. "Since when did you get this straightforward?"

"It's you, idiot. I know you—" A hiss as Doyoung swiped a finger over his rim. He must have played with himself, home alone today. The thought sent a current of heat down his spine. "You'll take care of me."

In this vein, Doyoung slicked Taeyong open, fingering him, moaning and blisteringly hot, to completion, supplanted with a few strokes of his hand.

Regaining his breath, Taeyong took Doyoung in his mouth and let him grip his soft hair as he worked him over.

Loose-limbed from their highs, they fell back onto the bed, smiling as they kissed, lazily making out in the shower, after.

*

"What's Professor Seo doing here?" Renjun craned his neck over the mingling crowd. "It's a biomedical symposium."

"Who knows," Doyoung feigned ignorance. The real reason was standing near the staircase, Jaehyun chatting with a visiting researcher from SNU. The hapless man was leaning in, smiling far too widely for a conversation on cardiovascular diseases. Johnny was glowering in the background. Doyoung stifled a laugh.

"Oh, I see Donghyuck," Renjun said. 

"Where?"

"Second slot, last row."

Sure enough, the grad student was holding court to a pair of judges, pens poised, regaling them with a portion of the lab's work. The acceptance email from _Nature Medicine_ had arrived last night; their entire group had buried him and Jaehyun in hugs.

"Should we try to push through?" Renjun asked, sipping his cranberry juice.

"You go on ahead," said Doyoung. "I thought I saw a project on DVT further back."

The undergrad stammered as he recited his spiel to Doyoung, who attempted to smile encouragingly. A few questions, then he was swept back into the flow, shaking hands, bowing to the emeritus faculty.

Taeyong was nibbling on a macadamia cookie beside a 3D display of bronchial tubes. 

"Hey."

The smile Taeyong sent him was heart-stopping. "Doyoungie." 

He held out the cookie, and Doyoung shook his head.

"More for me," Taeyong lilted. He looked handsome, simply standing there in his dark blue suit. When Doyoung told him this, he blushed to his ears. Some things never changed.

Donghyuck pulled them back into the fray five minutes later, griping _you guys can make googly eyes at each other later, gross, my session is now_ , and made a show of regurgitating the abstract Doyoung had written in a posh voice when they got there. At his behest, they signed the back of the poster in Sharpie.

The residents trickled out, as did a gaggle of windswept people in a variety of work clothes ("free from the trappings of higher education," Mark said, dodging a pen.)

In the chaos, Johnny fanned himself with a pamphlet at the welcome table.

"I understand nothing but I'm enjoying the vibe," he said, kicking out two foldout chairs.

"Conversely, I don't know how you can decipher that iambic pentameter mud and be okay," Doyoung replied. 

Johnny laughed, waving as students called out greetings, quizzical at the presence of their literature professor. He smirked upon seeing Doyoung's and Taeyong's fingers brushing under the table. "For someone who's supposedly an expert on hearts, you were struggling back there. I thought we were going to have sixteen seasons of longing glances without the popcorn."

"Coming from you," Doyoung intoned. "I feel vindicated."

"Ouch." Johnny cast a wistful look down the hall. Another pack of researchers had descended on Jaehyun, who was nodding and answering smilingly, in his element. "I'm going to confess soon, I swear."

"You better," Taeyong said, sighing.

They walked back to the hospital block in the warm April sunshine. At the crossing light, Taeyong pointed at the convenience store beside an outpatient clinic. "We used to buy shampoo at that chain."

"It gave your scalp a hard time," Doyoung said, remembering. "Especially after your third or fourth dye job."

"Did you like me blond? With green hair?"

Doyoung pinched a stray lock, tucking it behind his ear. "I like you any way." 

Taeyong ducked his head, clearing his throat. _Cute._ "One day, in my sixties, when a society can accept a doctor with colorful hair, I'm going pink."

"Alright."

"Are you doubting me, Kim Dongyoung?"

Doyoung smiled. "Of course not." The thought of being with Taeyong in his sixties, hobbling up steps together, had him bursting with sweetness. It was not the fireworks of his early loves but a quiet lull. An old love.

They crossed the street, bickering about something new.

**Author's Note:**

> why is writing in the realistic fiction genre so hard for me sdfjsskdj
> 
> disclaimer that all medical research was done through google. thank you for reading!


End file.
